


Sandor, Protect Your Castle!

by rougefox



Series: You Can't Go Home Again (For the Holidays) [8]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Judgemental Corgi, Multi, Parenthood, Summer Vacation, Unfortunate Implications
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-06-10 15:08:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15294135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rougefox/pseuds/rougefox
Summary: As the summer holiday begins, a nocturnal menace threatens the Clegane house.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I am reading your comments on my other works, I just haven't had a time to respond.
> 
> Lately my stuff has been super angsty so here is something lite and silly/stupid.
> 
> There will be updates, I promise

**First day of the summer holidays in a reasonably sized house located in a middle class neighborhood with good schools…**

 

The first time Sandor Clegane heard the horrible shrieking noise was in the kitchen. He had come home late from covering a night shift at the gym and was making himself a sandwich in the quiet of the sleep house. At first he thought it was two cats fighting, but the pitch was all wrong and it lasted too long. By the time he found the flash light and stepped out to investigate it had stopped.

 

The next morning he found one of the trash cans was scratched as if something with claws had tried to lift the lid.

 

The next time he heard it, he was balls deep in his wife. The children had been asleep for sometime when Sansa had finished her shower. She had spent the day out in the garden and smelled of earth and lemon soap. Sandor had enjoyed licking the water from her neck as he got her on her back. Her giggles were turning into moans when the shrieking started again. This time it sounded like it was coming from right outside their window.

 

Sansa had gasped and shoved him off to go investigate the noise. This led to an argument over the safety of the children and eventually both of them laying back to back in the darken bedroom. Sansa succumbing to exhaustion fell asleep right away while Sandor stayed wide awake, pouting.

 

A few days later physical evidence of something wrong became evident in the day light.

 

“Dad! Mom!” screamed Catie from the back door.

 

Sansa was fixing lunch and replied; “Catie, if you want to talk to us, you have to come in and speak in a normal voice!"

 

Sandor was sitting at the table reading a fitness blog on his tablet when his first born came traipsing in.

 

“Something pooped in the yard and I stepped in it, ” the little girl explained as she stood on the carpet.

 

Then all hell broke loose; trash cans were knocked over and garbage spread across the front yard. The howling at night woke up the dogs and the children. Strange turds covered the grass instead of the gravel doggy spot. Sansa’s melons plants and cherry tree were stripped of fruit and the cedar fence sported long scratches and tufts of grey hair.

 

There was no denying it: The Clegane family had raccoons.

 

“We should call an exterminator,”Sansa declared as they washed the dishes after dinner.

 

“We don’t need an exterminator,”Sandor replied. "I spent four years hunting down insurgents in the Red Waste, I can trap some fucking trash pandas.”

 

Sansa shot him the look she had perfected over the years when he swore where the children could hear.

 

“I’ll call Brienne tomorrow and ask her who she used last year when they had squirrels in their attic, ”Sansa said simply as she took the wine glass from Sandor and placed them back in the cabinet.

 

“I’m not Jaime "Dumbshit" Lannister, little bird,” Sandor said indignantly. “I’m not going to accidentally set the roof on fire.”

 

Sansa shook her head dismissively and Sandor pulled her into his arms.

 

"Look," he said down to his wife who was trying to look anywhere but at him. "A man's home is his castle, and I'm not going to let any person, dragon or critter destroy my castle or threaten my princesses."

 

Sansa sighed and acquiesced.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It begins

The next day Sandor lined up his children to set down some ground rules:

 

“These creatures may be cute, but don’t approach or try to touch them,” he instructed. “The traps are designed to capture them alive so we can take them into the wilderness and release them.”

 

The girls seem to like that lie. Sandor had every intention of handing the little fuckers over to the local animal control and let them decide what was to be done.

 

“You must keep the dogs away from the traps,” he continued. “Do not go near the traps even if there is something in them.”

 

“Even Lady?” Sandy asked as she held the floppy corgi across her lap.

  
  


Grandmother and Grandfather Stark had decided the girls needed a dog all their own. (Apparently Sandor’s elderly Black Lab/Rottweiler/Bear Island Shepard/probably not a monkey mix, Stranger wasn’t enough in his in law’s eyes).So after making it known to Sandor and Sansa they gifted a red and white Welsh Corgi to the girls on Soul Cake day complete with a pink bow on her rhinestone collar. The dog was excellent at looking adorable and mooching treats, but also excelled at terrorising Stranger who had no idea what to do with this stumpy, fluffy, tube of teeth and attitude. Occasionally when the girls weren’t looking she would give Sandor a look saying “I do not approve of you or your actions right now, peasant.”

 

At the moment the quasi-sausage shaped dog was happily enjoying a belly rub and shedding all over the freshly shampooed carpet.

  
  
  


“Even Lady,” he sighed

  
  


***

Somehow their racoon trouble made it’s way around to the others of the Stark Clan.

  
  


Arya Stark started a betting pool to see how long before he gave up and called the exterminator 

  
  


Theon Greyjoy had money on how long it would take before he resorted to dressing a stick of dynamite up like a sexy raccoon. 

  
  


Ignoring these slights against his ability to perform a simple pest control job, Sandor went to PateMart and purchased the most expensive large pest traps they had. After all you get what you pay for.  

  
  


That night following the instructions on the manufacturer’s website, Sandor set up the trap and baited it with chicken.

 

“See?” he said in an attempt to soothe his wife’s lack of faith. “Nothing to it!”

 

Sansa paused in her teeth brushing and looked at him via the bathroom mirror.

 

“Yes dear,” she replied.


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning Sandor poured himself a cup of coffee and walked out onto the deck. He breathed in the fresh cool air. With a spring in his step he made his way to the trap next to the trash cans. As he got closer he noticed movement beyond the crisscrossed wiring.

 

 _Nothing to it_ he smiled.

 

His smiled vanished as he looked down spied the black and cat that belonged to the crazy cat lady down the street.

 

Disappointed but not discouraged, Sandor extracted the yowling, clawed not-a-raccoon from the trap and boosted it over the fence.

 

That night he reset the trap and went to bed with no worry.

 

The next morning the trap’s wiring had been chewed through.

 

Absolutely astounded Sandor lifted up the trap to show his wife the destruction.

 

Sansa stood in her bathrobe and bed hair on the deck with a look of horror on her face.

 

“Oh my gods Sandor!” his wife hissed as to not alert the children happily watching cartoons while eating sugary cereal and feeding buttery toast bits to their corgi. “Call an exterminator!”

 

Sandor dropped the trap in the trash bin and replied, “Calm down little bird. We just need a bigger trap.”

 

Sansa’s bright blue eyes got huge: “They said something similar in _Jaws_ and look how that turned out!”

 

“Well they never went back for a bigger boat and that’s why it went tits up!” Sandor said kneeling in the dirt examining the foot prints. “And if I remember correctly it was the professional who got eaten not the civilian.”

 

Sansa chewed her lip and muttered, “Mother, please give me my mother’s strength.”

 

***

 

That night Sandor baited a new larger trap from PateMart.

 

The next morning the trap was on its side with door bent open.

 

“Oh for the love of the Mother, Sandor, what the hell is in our yard!” Sansa shrieked quietly as Sandor examined the trap.

 

“I don’t know, Sansa,” he replied. “But keep the girls out of the yard till I find out.”

 

Sansa put her hands on her hips: “it is the first week of summer holidays and you want me to keep three children indoors?!”

 

Sandor dropped the trap. He hadn’t thought of that. Images of last winter when they had been snowed in and the children had stayed home from school raised his mind causing him to shudder involuntarily.

 

“I’ll get the beast,” he said reassuringly.

 

Sansa huffed and stomped back in house.

 

Sandor bought two more traps.

 

The next day one was flipped over so the chicken bait fell out the next had the door ripped opened and the third held the black and white cat.

 

Sandor walked the ungrateful feline back to his home and received an long scratch on his wrist for his effort.

 

He knocked on his neighbors door and was greeted with the overwhelming smell of concentrated cat pee and the strange perfume all women over certain age seem to own.

 

“No wonder you ran away” he mumbled to the cat as he dropped it in the doorway.

 

He introduced himself to the tiny grey haired lady dressed in richly made threadbare clothes and large gaudy jewelry.

 

Behind her a dozen or more cats meowed and hissed.

 

“... I’d appreciate it if you would keep your cat indoors till I trap the raccoons,” he said as his eyes began to water.

 

“The Lord of Light sees you Sandor Clegane,” she replied then slammed the door in his face.

 

***

 

Disaster struck the next morning. Sandor and Sansa had spent the night arguing over the time and money Sandor had spent on his pest control attempts so they both overslept.

 

Sandy, awaken by Lady’s need-to-pee whimpering forgot about her father’s warnings and let the corgi into the backyard.

 

Sandor was out of bed and to the porch before Sandy could take another breath and resume screaming.

 

Holding his little girl in his arms and deciphering her red faced, mucus muffled attempts at forming words, Sandor discovered the source of Sandy’s distress.

 

Sitting in one of the traps was Lady.

 

The corgi appeared unharmed but the look on her foxy face as she gazed up at Sandor was clear:

 

“You, large human, are going to pay for this indignity. Oh yes, by the gods , you are going to pay!”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So in the past 30 days I have finalized my divorce, moved across town, hiked Hadrian’s Wall and started school again. 
> 
> Sorry for the delay. 
> 
> Pretty dark with a light ending

“We’re going to my parent’s house till you come to your senses.”

 

Sandor crossed his arms and bit the inside of his cheek to keep from breaking down.

 

Sansa refused to exhibit such self control: tears were running down her face even as her voice was calm.

 

The fight that followed the release of Lady was the worst they had ever had. Sandor had argued with his wife before. In the past a couple of fights had been bad enough that Sansa had locked herself in the closet to cry and Sandor had had to call a carpenter to fix the hole he had punched in the dry wall. But they had never gotten to the point they were at now. His three girls watched them from the back of Sansa’s hatchback. 

 

“You don’t need to do this,” Sandor said hoping the panic welling up inside him stayed off his face.

 

Sansa sniffed; “There is a giant rodent in our backyard that can chew through wire and you put our family in danger over your pride?!”

 

Sandor bit the inside of his cheek till he tasted blood.

 

Sansa took his silence for stubbornness and whispered: “Mother was right about you, you’re just like my father.”

 

Sandor’s voice caught in his throat. That was a low blow and she knew it.

 

“Call me when you get someone out here and that fucking monster is out of our yard,” his wife spat before climbing into driver’s seat and driving off. From the back window three sets of bewildered eyes and one judgemental corgi watched him till the car vanished down the street.

 

Sandor stomped back into the house and slammed the door so hard a crack formed around the latch.

 

He went into his bedroom and pulled on his jeans and checked his watch: 10 hours till sunset.

 

_Good._

 

For the plan that formed in his mind he would need every minute.

 

As he pulled on his trainers, Sandor hit a snag; apparently Lady had exacted her revenge before leaving with Sansa.

 

Sandor tried not to gag as he withdrew his foot from the soiled shoe and gave the trusty old sneakers a burial in three garbage bags directly into the bin.

 

For a second he was bewildered that the raccoons even came in the yard if that’s what came out of the corgi.

 

Then he wondered how something so small and fluffy could make something so disgusting.

 

_A lady indeed._

 

***

 

“Hey dog,” Bronn smiled through the storm door. “I thought you might need some dinner and a tasty beverage!”

 

Bronn pointed to the pizza while holding a six pack of some domestic microbrew.

 

Sandor scowled down at him but let him in just the same. He had forgotten to eat today and the smell from the pizza box promised a pie covered in a chunk of meat from every type of edible animal in Westeros swimming in cheese.

 

Sansa never let him eat like that, something about cholesterol levels and synthetic hormones in beef.

 

Bronn set the pizza on the dining room table and held out his hand.

 

“Alright Sandor,” he said dangling the beer in front of him. “You know the rules: you give me the rifle, I’ll give you a beer but you can’t have both.”

 

Sandor scowled. It was one of the rules around firearms they had pledged to follow when they got married and had children at approximately the same time. Bronn’s little boy was two months younger than Caty and his daughter was born the same month as Elinor. Somewhere there were photos of Lollys and Sansa standing together, huge baby bumps touching.

 

As such all firearms were kept in a safe in the back office of the gym. Mostly they were for hunting and skeet shooting as Sandor and Bronn’s reputations in the community kept potential burglar’s away.

 

“Come on Sandor,” Bronn cooed. “This is a six pack of red lager all for you!”

 

Sandor ground his teeth.

 

“Who squealed?”

 

Bronn had received a phone call from Tyrion Lannister. In a hushed voice Lannister relayed how he had seen Sandor retrieving his Winchester 30-60 from the gun safe. Tyrion had described Clegane’s demeanor as “ecumenically wrathful” and he had stopped his account auditing to hide under the desk till the big man left.

 

Sandor put the gun down on the dining room table and snatched the six pack from Bronn’s grasp.

 

Not even bothering to fetch a bottle opener he popped the top of the first one and poured it down his throat.

 

“If I’d known you were coming I would have asked for tequila,” Sandor snarled as he opened another beer.

 

Bronn thought back to the last time they had shared a bottle of tequila and shivered. He was pretty sure they still were banned from that strip joint in Sunspear.

 

Bronn’s eyes widened; “She’s coming back you know.”

 

Sandor burped and opened his third beer in as many minutes.

 

“What makes you think I don’t know that?”

 

 

Instead of reliving that paticalure pre- marital and babies memory Bronn opened the pizza box and offered Sandor a slice of greasy, fatally meaty cheesy heaven.

 

Sandor took the slice and attacked it with the same zeal that he used to consume the beer.

 

Twenty minutes later he and Bronn were out on the porch drinking more beer and reminising of the time before marriage and children.

 

Bronn slapped his thigh high and exclaimed: “Then you said, you said; “Get this bitch a cannon! Bitches love cannons!””

 

They both laughed till the history of smoking caught up with their lungs and the coughing started.

 

“What was the name of that Dothroki chick?” Bronn asked gaining control of his breath.

 

“ Jhiqui,” Sandor said after a moment. “Gods she was crazy.”

 

“Yeah,” Bronn smiled at the memory. “But give me a woman who can cook with tits you can use as ear muffs and an ass you can park a bike in.”

 

Sandor shook his head and sighed, “You never changed.”

 

“Nope,” Bronn smiled. “But you did.”

 

A dark shadow spread across Sandor’s face; “I just got tired of the cold side of the bed.”

 

Bronn watched his friend for a moment before quietly saying; “I’m going to get another slice of pizza.”

 

Standing just inside the kitchen Bronn texted his wife.

 

Bronn: _Let Sansa know I’m working on him_

 

Lollys: _I’ll pass it on when you’re done. She’s still at her parents house freaking out_

 

Outside Sandor drunkenly reflected over his life. Before Sansa it was chaos and mentally disturbed chicks. Now it was pageants and home cooked meals and a warm body next to him in the morning.  

 

He took out his phone and rehearsed what he wanted to say to his wife when he heard scratching over his shoulder.

 

Turning slowly he spied a large fuzzy shape scampering across the top of his fence before vanishing under the shed.

 

Sandor’s teeth clinched and he slammed open the porch door.

 

Bronn rounded the corner from the kitchen just in time to see Sandor snatch the rifle off the dining room table and vanish back into the back yard.

 

He made it to the deck just in time to see the back gate hanging limpy open as Sandor Clegane charged into the back alley in pursuit of the raccoon.

 

The fluffy nemisis ran through the alley with a pointed determination, Sandor close behind.

 

The raccoon dove for the safety of a rose bush outside the house of the crazy cat lady. Thorns and possible trespassing charges did not deter Sandor from kicking the bush apart and aiming his rifle into the dugout den underneath.

 

The raccoon puffed up her coat and let out an angry squeal at him. Sandor aimed down the barrel when a small squeak stayed his trigger finger; cowering behind their mother were three tiny baby raccoons. As their mother stood over them with her teeth bared they squealed in fear and pushed each other out of the way to squeeze into the safety under her belly.

 

Sandor let the air out his lungs in drunken exhaustion and lowered the rifle. He suddenly missed his wife and children more than he ever had in his life. In his drunklenly melancholy  he almost missed the deeper hissing coming from the lemon tree behind him.

 

Turning slowly and craning his neck up, Sandor spied a creature perched in the tree, the branches groaning under its weight.

 

It was the size of a bowling ball.

 

It was missing half the fur on its face.

 

It’s huge claws were gripping the branch so hard it left gashes in the bark.

 

It was the Daddy.

  


As the twenty pound sack of fury, fur and fangs flung itself from the tree and onto his face, Sandor Clegane unequivocally decided it was time to call in a professional.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading! The last six months have been insane and it feels good to finally get back to writing. I hope you enjoy!  
> * also since it has been six months or so please let me know what needs correcting :)

 

“You’re going to feel a little pinch. “

 

Sandor winced as Asha Greyjoy’s boyfriend shoved a needle into his stomach. Qarl Maidenson dropped the syringe into a sharps box and changed his gloves.

 

“You are going to need to get another shot in 7 days and then another in 14 days from today," the nurse practitioner stated as he pulled out bandages and disinfectant from an old timey doctor's bag.

 

Sandor scowled as he watched the exterminator through the front window. The professional was a blond guy who looked like he was made of pipe cleaners and surfboard wax was loading an occupied trap into the back of his green van with the words _Lommy's Green Extermination_ painted across the side. Bronn set a cup of strong tea next to Sandor’s elbow as his phone dinged with a text message.

 

 _There’s no shame in letting a professional take care of a problem_ wrote Jaime Lannister.

 

“The skin graph on his hand must of healed!” Bronn remarked, reading the text over Sandor’s shoulder. “See! You stopped before you set the house on fire!”

 

  
Sandor grunted at him.

 

 

“Take these on an empty stomach two hours before eating”, Qarl said while writing him a prescription for antibiotics.

 

 

Asha stuck her head in the back door: “Where do you want your rifle, Sandor? I found it under the rose bush in the crazy cat lady’s yard.”

 

 

“Just put it in the back of my truck on the rack, love,” called Bronn as he tossed her the keys.

 

Asha caught the keys with one hand: “I think I pissed off your neighbor, she kept yelling at me about the Lord of Light from her front door step surrounded by mewing cats!”

 

“Stay away from dairy or any calcium fortified food”, Qarl warned.

 

Sandor sighed dramatically as Qarl listed off a long list of possible gastrointestinal side effects.

 

 

“Mr Clegane?” Lommy the exterminator called as he strode through the front door. “Your raccoon problem is no more!”

 

 

Sandor snorted like a bull then texted Sansa to let her know the exterminator was finished.

 

“Do you take Mastercard or Lady Visa?” he asked the wiry upside down mop that managed to do what he couldn’t.

 

“Either!” Lommy whipped out a tablet with a card reader. “Okay, with labor, traps, county fees, tax and disposal fees it’s going to be 435 dragons. Do you want your receipt emailed you?”

 

Sandor shrugged as he fished his wallet out of his back pocket.

 

  
“I really cannot stress enough that you need to see your primary care physician tomorrow….” Qarl interjected as he applied a sticky ointment to a large scratch on Sandor’s neck.

 

 

Lommy swiped the card and waited for the internet to catch up. He looked over Sandor’s scratches and bruises.

 

“You know, I think your going to be alright, Mr Clegane,” he said. “I mean a few scratches and a couple of shots are nothing compared to what happened on my first job.”

 

 

Sandor pointedly ignored him, but Bronn took the bait.

 

“Oh?”

 

“Oh yeah!” the exterminator grinned.” It was one of those big ass houses down the highway with like 5 acres of land out back… this must have been 15 years ago or so…. This guy tried to get rid of these bats that had roosted in his attic. What he didn’t account for was even in the daytime bats will swarm around you and he ended up getting attacked repeatedly! Then he took a wrong step and fell through the ceiling of his oldest son’s room!”

 

Sandor rolled his eyes, Bronn and Qarl laughed.

 

“Oh yeah, his wife was pissed!” Lommy snickered. “She called me in and her husband just sat in the window of their bedroom scowling at me!”

 

Bronn nudged Sandor’s shoulder.

 

Lommy handed Sandor back his credit card  “I gotta tell you, his wife was one fine looking redhead…. If I had her at home, I wouldn’t let anyone just walk right in either.”

 

Just then Sandor's phone dinged with a text from his wife:

 

_Oh thank the gods! I want to come home! The girls want to come home! And Aunt Lysa’s husband is creeping me out! They’re always over here! He stares at me like I’m a slab of meat!_

 

Sandor scowled then smiled as a light bulb flicked on inside his head.

 

 

He turned to the exterminator: “Hey Lommy! How would you like to make an extra hundred dragons?”

 

***

 

Sansa startled her sister and mother as she leapt up from the kitchen table were they had been enjoying tea and cheesecake.

 

“The exterminator is leaving now so I’m going to help the girls gather up their things!' she exclaimed flashing one of her toothy grins she had perfected during her pageant days.  


Arya and her mother watched Sansa practically dance down the hallway to the stairs. Arya chuckled to herself before pulling out her phone to text Gendry to check to see who had won the betting pool.

 

Catelyn reached out her hand to her daughter.

 

“Well pay up!” her mother commanded.

 

Ayra looked at her mother like she just suggested skinny dipping in the pool. Before she could question her mother’s claim her phone dinged as Gendry texted back a screenshot of the “Sandor Clegane Raccoon Pool” with the message:

 

_IT'S YOUR MOTHER_

 

“Oh don’t look so shocked,” Catelyn said with a sly grin. “I know you probably don’t remember this, but when Rickon was a baby we came home from spending two weeks at that theme park in Maidenpool to find a hundred bats living in the attic. It was about this time that your father gave in to me and let me call an exterminator. Of course he was in the hospital after getting bit by the whole swarm then falling through Robb’s ceiling…. But the lesson learned is that you girls whether you like it or not will marry men like your father. Just remember that when Gendry decides to do things himself!”

****

 

**The next evening in a custom designed home with breathtaking views of the countryside and city....  
**

 

Petyr Baelish was propped up against the limited edition Lexington Laurel Canyon headboard in bed next to his wife when he first heard the screeches through the open window.

 

Lysa sat up and pulled a silk eye mask from her face; “What was that?”

 

Petyr looked up from the article he was reading about the complexities of personal propulsion devices and focused for a moment; “I think it’s a raccoon, dearest. I will call an exterminator in the morning.”

 

Lysa kissed him on the cheek, “Oh Petyr we don’t need to do that! I have no doubt you can handle it yourself.”


End file.
